A RIOT ON THE DOCKS.

In due time the voyage ended at the port of New York. The Ajax would not be ready for sea again for two weeks to come, and in the meantime her crew was paid off, Jack among them.

Raynor, after promising to call on the young wireless man on board the Venus as soon as he returned from a flying visit to his sister, shook hands warmly with his young chum. He proffered his left hand, though, for his injured arm was not entirely mended even then.

Uncle Toby received his young nephew with characteristic demonstrations of delight. He inquired if he had had occasion to use anything from the voluminous chest of medicines that the drug-compounding uncle had given to the boy. Jack had not the heart to tell the anxious old man that the contents of most of the bottles had gone overboard, although he had given some of them to a stout old quartermaster, who was as fond of dosing himself as are most sailors. The patient had drunk off the embrocations and rubbed in the internal remedies and declared himself much benefited; so that Jack could, without stretching the truth, tell his uncle that his remedies had accomplished a lot of good on the Ajax.

“I knew it! I knew it!” declared the old man, rubbing his hands delightedly. “They were never known to fail. I’ll give you another boxful when you are ready for sea again.”

“I’ve plenty left of the old lot, uncle,” declared Jack.

“Nothing like being well provided, though, my hearty,” said his uncle. “I’d hate to think of you being sick, away out at sea, without some of the ‘Universal Tonic and Pain Eradicator’ handy.”

The night after his return Jack bethought himself of some bits of apparatus he had left in his cabin on the Ajax. He decided to go over to her dock and get them. It would not take long and he was anxious to conduct some experiments with a view to the betterment of his “wireless alarm,” which had not worked quite satisfactorily.

The Ajax was not berthed in the Erie Basin, there being temporarily no room for her there, but lay at one of the Titan Line’s wharves in New York City.

The dock was on West Street, and it was not a long trip across the Brooklyn Bridge to where she lay.

“I’ll be back in an hour or so,” he told his uncle as he left.

“All right, my hearty,” said the old salt, engrossed in the composition of an invaluable malarial remedy for a captain bound for the South American coast.

When Jack reached the ship the evening had turned from a cloudy, dull twilight into a damp, disagreeable drizzle. A heavy Scotch mist filled the air and the big electric lights on the pier shone through the haze like blobs of pale yellow.

At the head of the gangplank was an old ship’s watchman who readily passed him on board on his explaining his business. Jack was surprised to see that there were several vague figures flitting about the elevated after-structure of the “tanker.”

“I thought all hands were ashore,” he said.

“No; there’s the fireman and an engineer left on board,” said the watchman. “They mean to keep up steam till it’s time to berth her over in the Basin, I guess.”

Jack’s mission took him longer than he had thought it would. He decided not to go home to supper, but to take it at any nearby restaurant and then come back to search for what he wanted later.

He found a quiet, respectable place and ate a hearty meal. When he had paid his check he returned to the ship and to his cabin. Some little time longer was spent in getting together the odd effects he wanted.

Suddenly his attention was arrested by a sound of shouting and yelling and brawling somewhere, as near as he could make out at the river end of the dock.

“Wonder what’s up?” thought the boy; and then the next minute, “Sounds to me like a lot of firemen cutting up in a riot.”

There was a lull and then the clamor burst out afresh. Loud, angry voices rose, and fierce shouts, as if the men on the dock were in deadly strife.

Jack ran out of his cabin.

As he did so the old watchman came pattering along the steel decks and clambered up the ladder to the superstructure, where Jack was standing.

“What is the matter?” demanded the boy.

“The firemen!” panted the watchman, pointing to the dock.

“Well, what’s the reason of all this racket? Are they fighting?”

“Fighting! They are trying to kill each other!” puffed the old watchman in a scared voice.

The lad knew that the firemen of big steamers are about as hard a crowd as can be found anywhere; but it was unusual for them to be making such a racket so close to the ship. He surmised correctly that some of the men had been ashore on a carouse while the others kept up steam.

“You’d better run for the police,” he told the scared watchman, and while the old fellow pattered off on his errand Jack’s ears were suddenly assailed by another sound.

Splash!

Something had struck the water right alongside the ship. Jack was just about to shout, “Man overboard!” when he peered over and saw in the fog-wreathed space between the ship and the dock a dark object drop from some port in the fire-room below him and strike the water with a second splash.

For a flash he thought it might be some fireman taking French leave of the ship. But a second’s thought convinced him that what had dropped was no human being but a big bundle of some sort.

“Now what in the world is going on?” he thought undecidedly.

On the dock the din of the fighting firemen still kept up. But right then Jack was more concerned with the mysterious happenings on board the ship itself. Something very out of the ordinary was going forward, that was plain enough. But what could it be? What was being thrown out of the fire-room port?

He was still struggling with the mystery when there came another sudden sound.

Jack recognized it instantly as the noise of an oar moving in a rowlock.

A boat was moving about in the dark obscurity between the ship and the dock. Peering over, Jack could see the dim outlines of the little craft moving slowly about far below where he stood.

Then of a sudden another of those mysterious bundles dropped from the fire-room.

He saw the boat impelled toward it as it lay floating, and then it was hoisted on board.

“What black work is going on here?” thought the young wireless man as he watched.